Candy Benders
by geekmage
Summary: It's HALLOWEEN in the Avatar world. ZUTARA.


Why the hell did I agree to do it?

I walked up the front steps of Hakoda's house, stopping at the threshold. I inhaled sharply and rapped my knuckles on the door.

Why couldn't her brother take her? Why did he get to go out with his friends and teepee houses? _I _should've been out covering Mr. Roku's house.

I glanced up at the peep hole. How long does it take to turn a _frickin_ doorknob? I thought as I waited for her. _Finally_ Hakoda opened the door. He gave me a tired smile, which I returned out of politeness.

"Hello Zuko!" he said a bit to brightly. "How are you?"

"I'm doing alight sir," I said. "Is everything okay?" I really didn't want to ask him, I knew he would just bore me with some crazy anecdote of some crazy guy stealing his parking at work or something like that but out of common curtsey I had to ask.

"Everything's fine Zuko, thank you for asking. I just caught Sokka trying to sneak some eggs and toilet paper out of the house. He, Toph and Aang were probably planning to mess with some houses." He shook his head tiredly.

"Good thing you stopped them, sir," That was the best thing I could think of to say.

"Well I only stopped Sokka. "I still think Toph and Aang are going to go on with it because I didn't think it was my place to tell their parents." Hakoda stated. I grounded him for the night, but I have to go out tonight and Kana isn't home either so I had to ask Yue to keep him out of trouble. I think this punishment will make him think twice about trying to pull something like this."

I gave a small sneer at this, which I skillfully masked as a cough. Yue was a college student who lived down the street from us. Even though Sokka was seventeen Hakoda made her _baby-sit _him so much.

He was so over protective of his kids. This is why I had to take Katara out trick-or-treating even though she was _sixteen_ years old. But she acted like a frickin eleven-year-old.

Anyways, Sokka had a huge crush on Yue, so spending the evening with her was more like a reward for him. So Toph and Aang would be having fun together and so were Sokka and Yue. At least _someone _was going to have fun.

"Well let me go get Katara for you." Hakoda said. He vanished beyond the threshold and into the other room.

I must've been standing there for half the night, or half the _millennium_. I could've sworn that the tree next to me grew a good ten inches while I waited for her.

Finally Katara came to the edge of the threshold. I felt a thrill of excitement sprint through my veins when I saw her. She was dressed up like a pirate: she wore an eye patch, a bandana with an image of a skull on it, A white blouse that cut off above her belly button, a pair of black boots, and a mini skirt. I couldn't believe her dad would let her dress like that, not that I was complaining.

"Hey there Zuzu," she said with a sly wave. My lips involuntarily twitched. I really hated it when she called me that but for some reason I _always_ smiled, only further encouraging her.

"Don't call me that," I muttered indignantly. She just giggled.

"Well have fun you guys, and Katara don't bother Zuko to much." Hakoda gave her a semi stern look. Katara just rolled her cerulean eyes. Those things were way to big for her face, but they were always brimming full of liveliness. Secretly, I thought they were kind of cute.

Zuko you're not wearing a costume," she said with the slightest frown.

"You're quick," I said sarcastically. But she ignored me.

"We'll have to get you something, actually I think I have the perfect thing in my room." Before I could heavily protest her insane query of wearing a costume she dashed out of the door way and up the steps to her bedroom.

Hakoda gave me a sympathetic look. Before I could respond to the look however, Katara had already dashed back down the steps clutching something in one hand.

"Here!" she exclaimed, thrusting the object in her hand into my hands. I turned it over to look at it. A creepy looking scrunched up blue face looked back at me. "It's the mask of the legendary blue spirit, the most famous raider ever."

"You don't really want me to wear this thing do you? If I wear it you wont be able to see my beautiful face." Katara and Hakoda both laughed.

I knew I certainly wasn't the best-looking guy in the world. I had an okay build, but that was only because I worked out hard for wrestling. Even then I was still too gangly. My face was too pale, my eyes were too beady, my hair was too shaggy, and I had this huge scar on my eye that stretched from the edge of my nose to my hair.

"Please, this mask will be a huge upgrade." Katara said with that mischievous look on her face were she lifted one eyebrow and all.

"And what about you? To bad that eye patch couldn't cover your whole face." I brushed off. I screwed the mask on because I thought it looked kind of cool.

"Well you two kids have fun," said Hakoda. He gave Katara a small push over the threshold. He seemed egger to get rid of us. When Katara was out of the door he closed it with a small bang leaving Katara and me alone.

I looked at her. Damn was she _short_. She didn't even come up to my _shoulder_. Sure I was a bit taller then the average person but still. She gave me a small cordial smile. I turned around and started to walk of and she quickly followed me to out first destination.

The first stop was Mr. Paku's house. I walked briskly and Katara struggled to keep up. I really only did it to annoy her but she didn't seem to mind.

I punched Mr. Paku's doorbell when we reached the icy house. He answered pretty fast.

"Whoa, don't you think you kids are a bit to old to be trick-or-treating?" he asked. But he still put a handful of candy in each of our sacks. "I should be giving you guys drinks, not candy."

Katara laughed when he said this. We really were way to old to be out trick-or-treating. I was eighteen and she was sixteen but she still wanted to go around to strangers houses dressed up in the craziest ways and demand candy from strange men. She was so immature some times. My Uncle Iroh always said that people like Katara maintained a balance in the world with serious people like me. I must have been the only senior from school out trick-or-treating. At least I got free candy from all of this.

Katara and I bade a thank you to Mr. Paku and headed of to the next house.

"Please, can we just take a short rest?" I begged Katara after about twenty hours of walking around.

"Fine ya big baby." I walked up to an abandoned house and sat on the porch. We had walked through four neighborhoods. My feet were killing me and _two _dogs had pissed on me.

Katara opened a candy with an orange rapper that said _Reese's_ on it shoved half of it in her mouth. I pulled the mask off of my face.

"I wouldn't eat that if I were you Katara. That came from Bumi ya know. I wouldn't trust him after the way he was looking at you."

"Zuko," she exclaimed sternly then she raised one eyebrow in that playful way.

"Don't get your panties in a bundle," I said.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she asked, still giving me that cute look. It was funny because I think she was trying to be serious. But I saw a slight smile so maybe not.

"It means don't get so excited that your under garments get tangled up your crack," I explained. She laughed heartily. She always laughed at my jokes even when know else did. And it wasn't that stupid phony stuff that you did to make people feel good, it was real. She always understood the jokes when other people didn't. She kind of understood me as well. She understood what it was like to not have a mother, something she had gone through herself and she understood me not having a father who cared for me, something she had never experienced.

"What are those things anyways?" I asked pointing to the half-eaten chocolate in her hand.

"What? You've never had a Reese's before?" she asked me.

"Nope."

"Were you isolated on a ship in the middle of the sea on some wild goose chase for the past couple of years?" she asked.

"No," I chuckled. I always laughed at her jokes as well no matter how dumb they where. For some reason they made me feel almost youthful. She laughed as well, her cerulean eyes glowing like the bright moon that now bounced its luminosity off of her round face.

"Well there really good, you should try one," she said shoving the other half of the chocolate into her mouth.

At that moment I did the most spontaneous thing that I had ever done in my life, and I'm a pretty rash person. I took her soft, round face into my hands, hooking my thumbs in her hair loopies and I let my lips melt into hers.

I had never experienced anything like it before. Sure I'd kissed girls before but not like this. My ex-girlfriend Mai had been great kissers but this was something else entirely. This…this…was amazing. Finally, after several long minutes that had contained a golden eternity our lips glided away from one another's like a pair of dancers. We sat there in a tranquil silence for a while. None of us moved. We held our breaths.

Finally I stirred. I swallowed the chocolate that had been added to my mouth and said, "Your right, Reese's are amazing."

**So I wrote this piece because I felt sad about the fact that school started. Then I realized Halloween is coming and I knew everyone was going to be depressed about school starting so I wanted to cheer everyone up by reminding everyone about Halloween! Sorry if it was OOC. I think I might write another chapter on this, a Taang chapter that shows what happened between Aang and Toph on the night this story takes place. Thanks for reading!**


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